Australia to Lay Off Leading Scientist on Sea Levels

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Ice off the western Antarctic Peninsula in March. Australia’s science agency is laying off 275 scientists as it shifts its focus away from climate research and toward more commercial projects.CreditCreditEitan Abramovich/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Michelle Innis

May 17, 2016

SYDNEY — A pre-eminent scientist in the field of rising global sea levels has been given notice of his dismissal as part of deep cuts at Australia’s national science agency that will reduce the country’s role in global climate research.

The scientist, John Church, confirmed Tuesday that he was one of 275 scientists whom the agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or Csiro, said would be laid off.

“I am impacted by the Csiro restructure and business plan,” Dr. Church said in an email from the Australian research vessel Investigator, where he was taking water measurements in the Ross Sea off the Antarctic ice shelf. He said he had been informed that Csiro was “consolidating” the team studying the effects of sea level change and “ceasing work” on rising sea levels.

The layoffs and shift in direction at Csiro — away from climate research and toward more commercial projects — created a public outcry when they were announced in February.

More than 3,000 scientists from 60 countries signed a petition describing the job losses as devastating to world climate science.

“John Church is among the top 10 climate scientists in the world,” Joshua Willis, a NASA climate scientist, from Pasadena, Calif., said Tuesday. “I can only imagine it will be a huge setback for global programs. I am stunned. It is sad and embarrassing for the Australian government.”

Another scientist, Dean Roemmich, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said: “To me it is absolutely inconceivable that the Csiro would imagine ditching such a pre-eminent scientist in a field that is so vital to Australia’s interests. We have so little idea how rapidly the climate and sea level are going to change in the coming decades. It is absolutely crazy to be taking anything away from that focus.”

Csiro would not confirm that it gave notice to Dr. Church.

A spokesman, Huw Morgan, said the agency could not discuss private employment matters.

“All of the talks and negotiations at present have the same goal of ensuring the excellent science and the long-term future of Csiro is maintained,” Mr. Morgan said in an email.

He said the number of researchers to be laid off had been reduced to 275, from an initial estimate of 350. Those cuts include more than a third of the agency’s climate researchers.

The layoffs are part of a change in direction in the agency under its new chief executive, Larry Marshall. He has said that climate change has already been proven so the agency should focus instead on “how do we find solutions for the climate we will be living with.”

The cuts threaten climate research at Cape Grim, Australia, where greenhouse gases have been measured since 1976, setting a baseline for tracking changes in the atmosphere, and a program called Argo, which tracks temperature and other conditions in the world’s oceans. Csiro has also said that it will reduce research on ice cores from Antarctica that can measure the change over time in greenhouse gases.

Climate scientists say the reductions could impair their ability to predict severe regional weather and help people prepare for extreme floods, drought, wildfires and cyclones. As climate change has made these events worse and more frequent, Australia has been among the countries hit hardest by them.

Dr. Church’s work studying sea levels has provided important keys to understanding climate change. Sea levels rise as water warms and expands, and glaciers and ice sheets melt.

“At the beginning of John’s career, we barely knew sea levels were rising,” said Dr. Willis, who is studying Greenland’s melting ice sheet for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Today we know precisely how fast it is rising and what the causes are and John has made a huge contribution to that.”

Hundreds of millions of people who live less than three feet, or a meter, above present-day sea levels will be affected as water rises. “Sea levels don’t have to rise by a meter to make that land uninhabitable,” said Steve Rintoul, from Csiro’s laboratories in Hobart, Australia. “You just have to make it so that it floods so often that you can’t live there.”

Dr. Church has until mid-June to appeal his dismissal. If he loses the appeal, he could be laid off or assigned to another job within Csiro.

Correction:

An article on May 18 about a decision by Australia’s national science agency to dismiss John Church, a pre-eminent scientist in the field of rising global sea levels, as part of deep cuts at the agency misstated part of the name of the San Diego research center where Dean Roemmich is a professor. Mr. Roemmich, who said the dismissal was “absolutely inconceivable,” is with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (not “Institute”).

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Australian Agency Lays Off Top Climate Researcher. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe